The present invention concerns the diagnosis of failing components in an electronic data processing system, and more specifically relates to the use of a data-processing system itself to aid an untrained operator in determining the source of a problem in a subsystem of that same system.
There was a time when a new computer arrived on the customer's premises accompanied by one or more service representatives who installed the system and remained forever to fix it as required. More recently, failures are diagnosed and repaired by telephone calls to service representatives, who may arrive at the customer's site to find anything from a simple loose cable to the digital equivalent of a meltdown.
As computers become smaller, more numerous, and more widely distributed, the cost of service becomes ever larger relative to the cost of the hardware itself. Also, contemporary small business systems, such as the IBM System/36 and System/38, are designed to run at a customer site without a professional data-processing staff or any other trained personnel. The situation is further complicated by the fact that several different suppliers may be involved, for example, the system supplier, a modem supplier, a communications-line supplier, and so forth. When a communications problem arises, the system supplier's representative may arrive to find the problem lies in the communications line, or that the fault is caused by equipment at the other end of the line, hundreds of miles away. These are not new problems, but they become much more acute as the individual systems become less costly and more numerous.
Several strategies have evolved to meet this problem, such as depot or carry-in service, and element-exchange servicing. One attempt to alleviate the high cost of providing service is to provide a document which leads untrained customer personnel through some simple problem-determination procedures (PDPs), to try to diagnose and solve some problems, or at least to isolate the problem to determine which service representative should be called. In a recent example, an 600-page manual was in development to lead customer personnel through problem determination in the communications subsystem of a small business processor. The manual, although skillfully prepared, proved difficult to use and its very size was felt to intimidate the users. For larger processors, diagnosis by a program running on a remote computer has been attempted. This approach, however, requires some relatively sophisticated equipment at the target system, and, if the network fails, no additional problem isolation can be done.